If you haven’t heard yet, it’s the season of the reboot or the reawakening, with classic franchise Lethal Weapon likely to get a new sequel. Anything that was once popular is likely fodder for the 2020 remodelling or rebirthing. Movies, TV shows and video games are all on the menu as execs look to cash in on a nostalgia bonanza. But have any icons been overlooked? Should any rules be followed? Below we look at some of the reboots or remakes we would love to see and how we would like to see producers treat them. Some are in the works already, but will they work out to honour the source material?
He-Man
Masters of the Universe is a franchise that has seen many incarnations over the years, including numerous toylines, mini-comics, newspaper comic strips, 3 cartoon series and one movie. There has been talk of a new movie for the last few years, but that comes and goes. What has been confirmed is that there will be not one, but two new He-Man cartoons coming to Netflix. One new, Anime style series run by Kevin Smith and another 3D CGI origin story series. We are very curious to see how these will work. But moreover we are encouraged that this investment in the franchise may give even more momentum to the movie that is meant to be on the cards. That movie is an even bigger question mark. There are two ways that reboot could happen. They could make it a serious action movie, which seems like a bad idea. Or, they could go the route of Thor Ragnarok and not take itself too seriously by playing for laughs. We are hoping they do the latter and embrace the diversity and fun of the He-Man universe.
Thundercats
For all the reboots and remakes out there, it’s certainly strange that there seems to be no real effort to float a Thundercats live-action movie or an ambitious video game. There is plenty of funky back story and canon to work with, and some of those characters could translate well to a modern audience. Mumm-Ra, for instance, is a cracking villain and the artwork around the character is immense. A rebooted cartoon series, which was tonally different from the original, was released in 2011, and subsequently flopped. Try again, please. And, perhaps do something dark so that Mumm-Ra can shine as a properly scary villain. Do you remember the spoof trailer that went round the internet years ago of Brad Pitt made up as a ThunderCat? I think that could work!
Donkey Kong
If you have lived long enough, you will appreciate that Donkey Kong embodied the idea of arcade games in the early 80s. Various attempts have been made to reboot the character. Indeed, he has never really gone away. Obviously he is a perennial contestant in the Mario Kart games. We saw him as the bad guy in Adam Sandler flick, Pixels, and he makes an appearance (although not officially) in casino games like Return of Kong Megaways and the game Banana Monkey at slotsheaven.com in Canada. But what we would really like to see is an ambitious sequel to the brilliant Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. It was one of the best video games of 2014, and Nintendo has kept us waiting too long for a new release.
The NeverEnding Story
Reignited in the collective zeitgeist by its song’s appearance in Stranger Things, The Neverending Story could be perfect for a Netflix reboot, rather than a one-off film. One issue with rebooting The NeverEnding Story is that many look to the 1984 film and think that should be the source material. The movie, while beloved, was seriously flawed, and the follow-ups were poor. However, the book by Michael Ende, on which the films were based, is a fascinating story, and that’s were any producer should be looking. A live-action series could be really special here.
Fraggle Rock
Rebooting Jim Henson creations saw some success with the Dark Crystal recently, and The Muppets, of course, haven’t gone anywhere. It’s the late versions of the latter from which we think any Fraggle Rock reboot should take inspiration. By that, we mean a movie should be aimed at adults and kids, like The Muppets (2011) starring Jason Segel. It occupied that space in appealing to children, but being risqué and clever enough for adults to enjoy. We could see something similar happening with Gobo, Wembley and the gang. Apple TV is reportedly working on something – please make it good.